Review Round Up: Holy Sh!t!, Kiln Theatre

Opening the newly refurbished theatre, Alexis Zegerman’s comedy examines what lengths people go to give their children the best future possible. Here, Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews…

The Guardian: *** “Zegerman has a sharp eye for middle-class hypocrisy”

Evening Standard: *** “Yet too much of the humour lacks bite. The play has a topicality that’s sometimes fizzy but sometimes laboured, and only in the darker second half does its concern with prejudice come into focus.”

The Independent: **** “One of the many questions the play prompts is what kind of example you would set your children by cheating to get them a preferential place. A stimulating start to a season that will include a stage adaptation of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.”

The Stage: *** “it’s a clever bit of programming: debates about heritage and legacy, and which side on any given argument is better at playing the victim. In that sense, and in this newly baptised theatre, through slow, and sometimes painful, accumulation the play eventually pays off.”

The Telegraph: *** “for all Zegerman’s success in keeping us watching, the characters sound too much like mouth-pieces and the piece feels too hermetic, a shallow exerciserather than a deep exploration, the themes a convenience rather than a burning necessity.”

Time Out: *** “To be honest, it mostly feels like a sitcom: sitcom acting, sitcom pacing, sitcom set, sitcommy direction. It’s funny (often) and thought-provoking (occasionally), but I’m not sure it really tells us what ‘Kiln’ is all about.”

WhatsOnStage: *** “although the actors under Rubasingham’s efficient direction give it their all, and although it all looks fine on Robert Jones’s simple but versatile set, the whole thing remains oddly stilted and lifeless.”

British Theatre Guide: “The situation that is used to drive both drama and comedy can get very contrived.”